Education "vouchers" solve the fiscal crisis, and also lead to economic recovery?

Simply open up K-12 education to the market place, with government only playing a role by financing the students with a yearly education check of $8000.

*www.usagovernmentspending.com shows American local governments spending $458.3 billion for K-12 education in 2012.
*(Sir Ken Robinson says this education system is a complete failure)
*The new education cost of $8000 education check to 50 million K-12 students is $400 billion per year
*This saves $58.3 billion
*(a $6000 check would save $158.3 billion)
*The yearly education check allows students(and their parents) to choose how, when, where, and what they learn, and also who teaches them
*The yearly education check of $8000 opens up a $400B/year market to entrepreneurs, teachers, and creatives
*($6000 check opens up a $300B/year market to entrepreneurs, teachers, and creatives)

Jan 23 2013:
A the mother of two who went to private school and then public school I have an incredible issue with vouchers as they really lead to flight from districts; rather than working to create better schools we simply shut down (due to lack of applicants) those that have no voucher students. I am a former high school teacher, now a professor, and agree that the US educational system is in chaos but really believe that it takes an entire community to change things - we need to clarify for parents that they have to be involved as actively as possible, we have to hold teachers accountable for their poor teaching and reward them for great teaching. I am currently ranked 17th best community college professor in the entire country but I make less than a colleague who has taught for years, is tenured and does absolutely nothing - we need to be held to a high standard where we can be replaced if we are not doing the job. Finally we need to create a culture from the bottom up where education matters first, where it is the priority.

Some of the voucher systems have been a mess, some have parents in inner cities celebrating winning vouchers (handed out by lottery) as if it the megamillions. Students and parents paying for education directly (with government helping with finance) would lead to flight from the bad teachers, and flight to the good ones. Bad teachers simply have to shut down because they have no income, and the good ones open up space for more students and get more money. I agree it is a sad thing to see schools close doors, but on a personal level for me, it is even worse to see children being cheated out of an education, to see good teachers being cheated out of fair pay, and to see bad teachers get a free ride. So let the bad schools and teachers fail, let the good ones thrive.

Bottoms up comes by putting money into the hands of the students and parents to have choice. It also gets the parents more involved and active in education now that they are responsible for choices rather than government.

In the 1700s, England had the same problem with tenure. Oxford stagnated, yet universities in Scotland (Glasgow, Edinburgh) thrived in part to students having choice and paying professors directly.

Jan 23 2013:
My chief concern about vouchers is the unintended consequences. Middle and upper class families will do fine, I think, but not the poor. Attending a school other than the poorly-performing neighborhood one is not an option for many poor children because they lack transportation, and I haven't seen a voucher plan which addresses that (maybe I just missed it). Requiring a poor family to use a chunk of its voucher money to pay for transportation means that their kids will have to go without something else.

How do you handle travel distance at all? Are the students farther away from a diserable school out of luck because of location? Or will there no longer be any such thing as a neighborhood school; will all scholls be open to all students? If no school has a designated attendance area, then who gets to attend the highest-performing schools which will probably have far more applicants than spaces?

What about the special needs students? Will those families get extra voucher money to pay for the aides and other expenses their children require, or will schools require everyone else to subsidize those costs? Also, the way No Child Left Behind works, schools are penalized for their special education students. No matter how great a school might be in meeting the needs of its disabled students, those with mental disabilities hurt the school's rating, driving away voucher-wielding parents from an otherwise excellent school.

This may be a minor consideration, but at the high school level, how will vouchers affect athletics? Will a school be able to recruit better athletes, as colleges do? High school athletics are great for unifying a community and creating a sense of community where one does not exist.

On a separate note, I don't like the assumption that every teacher at a "bad" school is a bad teacher. Closing a poorly-performing school ignores the teachers doing good work (few though they may be).

Jan 24 2013:
I was about to post similar concerns regarding good schools attracting more students than they can handle and "low-performing" schools in poor neighborhoods getting less funds. Services for special needs students is another great concern of mine.

Despite my skepticism that public schools are the only way to provide education, these are serious issues to address.

Frequently, private schools have higher ratings than public schools not because they are better in any way, but because they select high-performing students. Special needs students and students with behavior problems are simply pushed out. I know this from personal experience.

Jan 25 2013:
Alan and Arkady I will comment down here. Good questions all

For Allan,
20 years of voucher research has shown the people who benefit most from vouchers are the poor and minorities. The middle class also benefit enormously, and the benefit to the rich is much less.

An older poll from 2000 when vouchers were less popular showed that 87 percent of African-American parents aged 26 to 35 supported vouchers. Voucher programs and support are strongest in poor inner cities. A senate testimony elaborating on the voucher studies and research methodology:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTbMJtQL5ew

Also, unrestricted vouchers open up education to every service imaginable. Tutoring, apprenticeships, internships, home schooling, online schooling, night school, daycare, YMCA, attending community college. Which means that education becomes more than just the domain of schools. If 20 students from the same apartment block put their $8000 together, they have $160,000 to hire tutors at $40/hr to show up at their house to educate them for 4000 hours. Transportation, how about an innovative educators converting 5th wheel trailer into mobile classrooms and picking up the students to make his service offer more attractive for the parents and students holding the voucher money?

The inner cities also have hundreds of charity services ready to educate the children, the charities have no market for education because of rules, regulations, and students being mandated to go to public school at certain times and places due to zip codes. And people who made it out of the inner city poverty cycle, vouchers open a market to them so they can earn big money going back and teaching --- they attract 40 students, $320,000 in revenue.

Jan 25 2013:
An example if we hold everyone at public schools and switch to vouchers.

So what happens is the public school sets a price equal to the voucher, and the parents and students pay that price to attend the school.

This is a simple change to the funding model:
-instead of education funding coming top-down through politicians,
-the education funding comes bottom up through the students and parents paying teachers or schools directly.

So for transportation and food concerns, if parents decide to continue sending their child to the public school, the infrastructure, transportation, and food services are already there.

Just like in Robert's example, politicians, unions, government officials of all levels, and "educrats" are stealing money from the students and teachers.

Switching to bottoms up funding where the students and parents pay teachers directly prevents bureaucrats from stealing ~50%+ of the education budget from teachers ($6 billion for Arizona!), and puts the money into the hands of the educators chosen by the students and parents.

Jan 25 2013:
What happens if parents and students are free to choose education services with their vouchers and opt out of the public school?

So if the public school shrinks by say 30%.... I'd like to focus on the students. Isn't it great that they discovered an education pathway better for them? That they are liberated from the shackles of textbooks and curriculum planning by politicians? That they can choose when, why, what, how, where they learn, and who teaches them?

Why are federal and state government mandating curriculum anyways? 12 years of life dictated by the government in an education system without much liberty?

The funny guys and class clowns may actually like Shakespeare's comedies. They are forced Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. The teachers know their individual students better than the politicians. Shakespeare has many books, yet teachers are so locked up by politicians calling the shots, they have to force the textbook. It's a disgrace.

I know tenured teachers or administrators may feel threatened by having to attract and compete for students and parents who hold the voucher money... but seriously, man up and compete like every other service does for customers. If you are a great educator, attracting students on $8000 vouchers should be no problem, in inner cities where populations are large and close together, 40 students from the same apartment block lands you $320,000 in revenue for 1000 hours of teaching plus anything parents add on top.

So if the public school shrinks by say 30%, and they will have to tighten their belt. The same thing happens with tutors and restaurants, if you do a bad job, the students and customers go elsewhere. This is where concerns for athletic programs getting cut come in?

Jan 25 2013:
For school activities, I think high school sports would see a boom. Because schools can begin specializing where core parts of their education service cater to specific groups:

-Football crazy parents can send their football crazy children to education services for the football crazy where they all fit in.
-Baseball players who see more funding go to the school football programs could simply start baseball centered education services.
-non-athletes who see no benefits from athletic programs could choose schools that offer services focusing on arts, sciences, and engineering.
-special-ed schools can specialize in special ed and finally have the money to employ specialists, specialist impeded by the low pay offered by public schools will finally have a market to earn a decent wage if they are good.

Division of labor and specialization are two key components of civilization, technological advancements, and efficiency improvements... both components are absent in America's public education because of the federal, state, and local government rules and regulations. Vouchers opening up the market allow for division of labor and specialization in education services.

Jan 25 2013:
And for inner cities, at the beginning of this post someone was concerned about transportation and costs of the poor rural areas: What are your opinions on this Allan, Arkady

""
"how do you envision competition in rural areas where there's only demand for one school in a wide radius"? Well, it's a buyers market.

Most of the rural towns I have been through in the Midwest want nothing more than the government to simply get off their lawn, and stay off. Education "vouchers" break the chains of government rule, regulation, management and operation.

So let's say this rural community has 20 K-12 students, $8000/student.
And the parents pool their money together
And the parents choose me to decide the education for their kids
And the parents choose me to be King of education.
So I have $160,000 of government money to spend on the education of 20 kids for an entire year -- plus anything the parents or community members decide to donate.

I would put up advertisements across Mexico:
"Paying $80,000 cash to the Mexican Mariachi band that teaches singing, dancing, music, songwriting to a small rural American town for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 40 weeks."

Use the remaining $80,000 to buy instruments, decorations, and whatever other supplies. And for one year they are learning Spanish, music, song writing, dancing, and interacting with musicians from Mexico.

So...
How do you envision the education change for the children of an inner city single mother of 5 who now has $40,000 a year for buying education products and services --- where before she had $0 and a worthless inner city public school assigned by zip code?
""

Jan 25 2013:
""
Advertisements across former Soviet countries
-"Paying up to $100,000 in cash to the group of 3 circus performers that teach circus tricks, maths, and Russian to a small rural American town for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 40 weeks."
-"Free room + food + experience of living in an American rural town. OBO/Negotiable"
Then I would use the other $60,000 to buy resources for all the students.
One year of Russian, circus performing, physical fitness, health, exercise, and math.
One year of Spanish, Mariachi bands, music, dance, song writing"
""
Allan, I think if you asked your students:
"what is the most outrageous craziest education plan you can think of for a class of 20 students for one year using $160,000" they would have many more great ideas than the ones I posted.

The combined creativity and education talents of 300 million American market participants is much greater than that of the central planning politicians and the Department of Education.

My favorite one so far with an open education market is from Greg Swanson: home schooling + a $50/month gym membership.

Jan 28 2013:
I don't mind legitimate competition in education, which we don't have now. Vouchers, as you explain, might be a viable alternative. I'm in favor of what helps the kids the most, and your ideas are appealing. The only down side is that to see if something works in education, we have to experiment on actual people over time.

By the way, where I live and teach, people would beat you to death if you suggested taking away their football program, even if it has never won a game. I still think it's worth talking about, though.

Jan 20 2013:
An excellent education remains the clearest,
surest route to the middle class. To compete with
other countries we must strengthen STEM
education. Early in my administration, I called for
a national effort to move American students from
the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement. Last year, I announced an
ambitious goal of preparing 100,000 additional
STEM teachers over the next decade, with growing
philanthropic and private sector support. My
"Educate to Innovate" campaign is bringing
together leading businesses, foundations, non- profits, and professional societies to improve
STEM teaching and learning. Recently, I outlined a
plan to launch a new national STEM Master
Teacher Corps that will be established in 100 sites
across the country and be expanded over the next
four years to support 10,000 of the best STEM teachers in the nation.

Jan 20 2013:
STEM education is definitely what we need more of. A curriculum that focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is the surest way to ensure our children are ready for the demands of our 21st century economy. Naturally, public education is the most cost effective way of delivering it.

Jan 20 2013:
STEM education is not that lucrative in the real world and there is a lack of jobs. While industry claims a shortage of educated engineers and chemical graduates, the jobs just aren't out there or are already filled by older people. The truth is that most graduates that get a STEM education end up in management or finance, especial the Insurance field (if they have heavy math skills).

When I graduated in the Eighties, the jobs were not there. We were in the midst of a recession and everyone was either slowing down or cutting back. I ended up creating a job in the metal salvage industry; made boo-cu bucks. I also established a lock and key business before settling in the programming industry as a lone maverick. My first job was as a programmer in a robotics factory but that fell off after a year, leaving me looking for work. There simply weren't any jobs to be had back then and entrepreneurship was the way to go, as it might be today.

Jan 20 2013:
STEM by itself may not be lucrative, but it is a fundamental part of the degrees that are. Consider nursing and other health care professions. Advanced math, chemistry, and biology are key parts of that education.

Our weak economy doesn't help. Degrees without experience have always posed difficulty for new grads throughout all of history.

It can be hard for some to realize the value of a science education. Not everybody is going to go into a profession that needs it. To that end, I actually think one of the most practical classes I ever took in high school was typing. However, from an economy point of view, if only 1 out of 1,000 students with a science education went on to be innovators, the payoff would be worth it. 50 million K-12 students in the pipeline would translate to 50,000 innovators for our future.

Jan 8 2013:
sir ken robinson, inspiration as he is, has never taught a class in his life as far as i can gather from the biographical information available on the internet. he has many fine words but absolutely no experience (his studies were in english and drama, which speaks to his prowess as a speaker, not an educator). as much as people won't like hearing him criticised, people like him are the problem, not the solution. if ken wants to show the value of his ideas he should take a real class for 5 years! hopefully he'll realise that most of what he's saying is brilliant only in theory, and modify his ideas to better suit reality.

students themselves have no idea (despite what they think) how to select appropriate course materials and neither can parents, and you only have one education it's not like you can try something else if the first one doesn't go the way you were expecting, like you can when selecting a restaurant. and there's further danger in that giving that much choice to people without any knowledge or experience in choosing will lead to choices based on appeal - the most congenial teacher is not necessarily the best!

a few of my own students were complaining to me the other day about how their new teacher shouts at them so often and why couldn't she be more like their math teacher who is easygoing. i explained that the math teacher didn't bother wasting the energy to snap you into shape because he wasn't that bothered if you succeeded or not and preferred to leave it up to the students, whereas the new english teacher actually wanted students to succeed and further their potential. 3 of the 4 went into rebellious silence while the other started smiling and nodding in realisation.

Jan 8 2013:
You have a point, Ben, that one gets a far better sense of what is going on in schools and education if one actually takes a crack at teaching in them, not as a visitor on an occasion but over the long haul. It is difficult to be expert without such experience.

Jan 9 2013:
Ben,
You have a very interesting perspective because you teach in Japan, and Japanese students, parents, culture, history, and values are different than American ones.

So the Japanese government decides to redistributed education money so every K-12 student has $8000 in cash in their backpack. And the market is completely open to anyone offering education services. Do you think English-fluent Gaijin education entrepreneurs could provide more useful Western Culture and Business English education compared to what Japanese government curriculum, rules, and regulation mandate for the public and private schools?

Let's say the market is open and an advertisement on Ratuken reads:
-1000 hours of class instruction
-20 spaces
-Ages 15-17
-Must have zero English ability
-Must have Silicon Valley entrepreneurs as heroes.
-Teaching Silicon Valley start up culture and business, in English.
-$8000 per student
-Service offered by Ben Jarvis, teacher extraordinaire.
Then 20 students sign up for your class --- What are your thoughts on this?

Jan 9 2013:
where a person teaches and who he teaches has no bearing on the way the human brain learns. though my studies were primarily in biochemistry, i have always been interested in the science and psychology of how we figure things out and why we think the way we do. a couple of my family members back in australia are high school teachers too, and we often share identical stories.

your question rests on a faulty assumption, that students know what they need. students know what they like for sure, but they don't know what skills will be valuable later in life, what their own aptitudes even are, or even what they are interested in since they haven't yet been exposed to every field there is.

an education entrepreneur is by definition a very poor educator as education is not a consumer product, and treating it as such will lead to poorly educated students. furthermore i wouldn't hold silicon valley as a standard for education, they don't even do any educating there and not everyone is destined for a tech company.

if i gave $8000 to every student i'd expect most of them to sign up for well-advertised courses with a lot of entertainment value but little substance, with gadgets in hand that aren't even suitable for the courses they are yet to take.

just to give 3 experiences (yes cross-culture ones) students regularly sign up for courses to be with their friends and wind up doing poorly and missing out on taking a more suitable course, buy dictionaries and software that have so much information and features they're forever going through it all while the students who bought the recommended one finish more quickly and easily, and attend special-interest schools only to discover halfway through that their interests have changed.

think back to when you ere that age, exactly how much did you know about the world and what you should equip yourself with in order to live in it?

Jan 11 2013:
Ben, two questions
So what courses would you advertise as a teacher?

"students themselves have no idea (despite what they think) how to select appropriate course materials and neither can parents," That fits the bill of an imperialist providing Western education to Japanese. Seems like you got latent British imperialist fantasies of knowing what's good for everyone else. Everyone should learn English too, yah?

Are you sure that American parents are just as ignorant as to what is good for their child as Japanese ones?

i would never advertise any courses. as i've said the thing that's most appealing isn't necessarily the thing that's going to be the most benefit. for example say 2 english courses were advertised, one covering the literature of the twilight saga and another the literature of hemingway. no doubt twilight is much more appealing to the modern teenager than some stuffy old guy they've never even heard of, but one day when it comes to writing their job applications or a presentation to a client, it's the students who will have read hemingway that will come out with better work.

i think you misunderstand a little, i don't mean to dictate what all kids should learn, i mean that educational courses should be selected by people who've experienced years of teaching, thousands of students in total, and have seen the results of what is taught and how it is taught. if you're feeling a chest pain from time to time, you'd ask a cardiologist - a heart expert - rather than a friend who sells new cars right?

i do think there is room for choice though, i always make my advanced courses available to students who've scored well in the past (though they don't have to continue my course, it's optional) and also those who haven't scored so well but wish to continue my course because with motivation they could likely improve.

i wouldn't say purely ignorant, many are just misguided, which isn't an insult, i wouldn't expect people who haven't taught for at least 5 years to know much about it. the same thing happens when people choose to diagnose their own health problems instead of leaving it up to a doctor.

Jan 14 2013:
Ben,
I am going to put your analogies in the proper context for the American education system.

If you had a health problem, would you rather have:
A) $8000 given to a politician to maximize your $8000 on who, what, when, where and how your chest pain is examined and treated?
B) You given $8000 to chose from a variety of doctors, including cardiologists that all have their offers, prices, history, credentials and customer feed back on Amazon.com?

If you had a health problem, would you rather have:
A) $8000 given to a politician to maximize your $8000 on who, what, when, where and how your health problem was treated?
B) You given $8000 to chose from a variety of doctors, including cardiologists that all have their offers, prices, history, credentials and customer feed back on Amazon.com?

Jan 14 2013:
i am not capable of diagnosing myself nor of choosing the correct treatment because i am not a doctor, and neither is any politician. the only answer that will result in my condition correctly being treated is C), doctors are paid a salary according to their experience and contributions to their field, and depending on attending at least 1 conference a year where doctors gather to discuss new and better treatments, improving healthcare as a whole.

i'm really glad you're sticking with this, but u still don't seem to understand the point that the average person is very very far from being an expert or even understanding medical practice. what good would patient reviews be? lets keep with your A and B method:

doctor A treats your condition in 3 visits, prescribing 2 different medicines, was very friendly and your symptoms disappeared after a month.

doctor B offered a bunch of tests you could take take to diagnose your condition, allowing you to choose the one you preferred, so you spend an hour in a machine and have a 20 minute discussion with the doctor later, finally together deciding on lifestyle changes that reduced the severity of your condition.

so which was the better doctor? if you read these 2 patient accounts, which would you choose to treat you?

Jan 15 2013:
Ben,
I think we agree with each other here: we both do not want politicians choosing educational or medical treatments and methods for ourselves or for our children.

That's the problem with the American education system: politicians get $453.6 billion every year to decide educational service for America's K-12 children. Teachers, parents, and students should be empowered. Not politicians. What do you think?

Jan 16 2013:
there's nothing wrong with politicians choosing educational or medical treatments as long as they're are making the decision based on expert advice without any conflict of interest.

say a state needs a bridge built. there's $100m allocated for the construction and so the politician whose job is it to decide on the bridge asks for tenders. he gets 4, but immediately discards one of them because he has shares in their company. then, because he's no civil engineer, he sends the suggested plans out to 5 civil engineering professors around the country, none of which have any commercial affiliations, and chooses the bridge design based entirely on their expert advice. what's wrong with that?

why should parents and students be empowered? what do they know about education? the problems with education in america have only arisen because parents and students have been empowered. students have no experience in the wider world and don't even know what they might turn out to be good at, and so cannot make an informed choice, and allowing parents to make the choice is just asking for trouble. most of the progress we've made in the modern era has come from children being freed to pursue their own careers rather than those chosen by their parents. why would we want to go back to the middle ages when you learned only what your father decided he wanted you to do?

Jan 18 2013:
Ben,
You mean "there's nothing wrong with politicians choosing educational or medical treatments as long as they're [not making the decision for me or my family]"

You already said that politicians are incapable. It's clear you benefit from a government monopoly on schooling where you don't have to compete against other teachers for students, can treat the students in the way you see fit, and opine that you are above everyone else in knowing what education is good for them. Typical British aristocrat.

Jan 18 2013:
i mean it's fine to choose as long as they're making the choice from expert advice and nothing else. politicians are incapable *by themselves* that's why they are at liberty to form panels of advisers, and having that expert advice at their disposal makes them capable.

i don't benefit from a government monopoly at all and i do have to compete against other teachers, if i don't properly prepare my students for university and beyond, by school will have to answer to the education department and nobody will get raises. the point is that they will tell us to shape up, but they won't tell us *how* to shape up (and why should they, they are desk workers not teachers), which is important. we also are required to attend yearly conferences at both state and national level to ensure educational standards are kept as high as possible *at every school*.

education should be judged based on student success, not on popularity or appeal, and parents and students just aren't in a position to make that judgement. if you wanted to judge the safety of an airline, would you ask the customers (passengers) or the mechanics who actually work on the plane and understand about how they work? some private schools here get chosen because their school uniform is good-looking! i am honestly not making that up! do you think schools deserve to get additional funding because their uniform is cool?

Dec 30 2012:
Where did I say anything about corporate bureaucracy George?
TED and individuals would be competing in this space too. You really believe that TED's education initiatives are so awful that children and parents would choose the services offered by for-profits?

Jan 24 2013:
Seeing how much per student is spent on public education in the current system and the low Graduation rates and abysmal
Reading and Math skills of some of the students any opportunity for improvement above the current system is necessary.

I went to Private Catholic schools at a time when discipline in schools meant something, and while my performance was average due to lack of effort, the class setting was not disrupted by anyone. The Upside was that my Peer group was College Prep focused and we did not spend time on continuous remedial learning.

I left Central NY where the class standards in my school and the public school in that area were that 90% went on to college. I NC where I now live, the counselors and Teachers were proud that the had college placement in the 60% range.

I have been a Self Employed Professional Technical Recruiter, and the High Schools are allowing and encouraging Student to study for skills that have little or no demand...I am sorry but History (I love) but no jobs, English, Teaches in the Northern States, and other areas.

A comment about the Poor and having to find there way to school. If there are vouchers and money to be made, charter schools will open in areas near them. Pay good teacher more and more people will teach.

The All around education in Catholic Schools was superior...There has been a dumbing down with the Group learning concept taught today, what that means is that the smart person in the group is stalled by helping his group learn because they don't pay attention or do their homework.

In Catholic HS we had 4 years of Science, so even being an average student you would have far more learning than most kids when you went to college. My same age neighbor who went to Public school had to take a semester of remedial courses to even qualify in the Local Community College.

But we also suffered with bad teachers, (Brothers of the cloth) who continue to teach when they can't. My 3rd year algebra/trig teacher, had a 60+% fail rate for 5 classes. He would spend so much time on answering remedial questions, that we didn't get the work done. And the math for 3rd year is important for Chemistry...I ended up in summer school, and actually got good teachers in the public school

I have never understood the group learning, weak link, no child left behind mentality. I think education services would benefit from a "no child left unchallenged" mentality.

So your Catholic school has four years of science, and better science teaching than the public school...I was reading that public school science laboratory education is stifled by rules, regulations, and liabilities. Did your Catholic school also have too-dangeous-for-public-schools hands on science and chemistry laboratory experiments?

Another great thing that has been proven in a multitude of voucher studies is that parents become much more involved with and feel responsible for their child's education. Vouchers put money and choice into the hands of the students and parents which makes them responsible for education. Put money and choice into the hands of the government and people come welfare/entitlement/slaves of the state.

Jan 25 2013:
"A comment about the Poor and having to find there way to school. If there are vouchers and money to be made, charter schools will open in areas near them"

How are the poor going to come up with the remaining $12,000 per year per child for a private school, given that the average private school costs $20K per year, and the really good ones can cost as much as $40K per year? Public schools cost a fraction of that cost with similar results.

The ONLY thing that has been shown to have a real impact on academic success is parental involvement. That can happen with either choice, public or private. You guys talk about 'parental choice', yet conveniently forget that 'parental RESPONSIBILITY' has a much greater impact.

Jan 23 2013:
In CA, there are approximately 180 school days. Divide your $8,000/year by 180 and you have $44/day or about $889/month for 9 months. This includes food, transportation, sports, extracurricular activities, etc.

Now i'm going to exaggerate for simplicity sake, but hear me out. What if I get a gym membership for my kid which would cost $50/month, but since I want to make sure he shows up and at least is present, I pay for an additional attendance service of $10/month. I want my kid to emphasize math and since I am a math whiz, I take on the task of teaching my kid math in the evenings. For geography, social studies, chemistry, biology, etc; I sign my kid up to take proctored tests that might cost $100/month and I give him internet access (he's going to be better doing the research anyways) and he'll find the lessons himself. Since I believe that he should have a good quality social life, I help organize LAN parties for him and friends, talk with other parents and have our kids develop extracurricular activites. As far as text books go, most subjects that are below the graduate school level, have good and FREE pdfs available online since the basics of the sciences don't change, and the social sciences and arts are very much free online anyways. Finally, for those parents that feel their children are going to surpass them in education, there will be a default curriculum that outlines what is suggested for someone to be financially successful.

Again, this is extremely simplified, but I think a voucher system would work well as long as it was in dollars and/or there was a loosely defined way of allowing the kids and parents to have educational options.

Jan 23 2013:
Greg,
Fantastic assessment using gym memberships as a pricing model. That takes care of the Physical Education class quite easily too. Many gyms have computer terminals. Group your child up with two or three friends, and the purchasing power gets them a daily personal trainer likely to be versed in the topics of health & fitness, first aid, and nutrition. "I'll drop my kid off at the gym on my way to work, $50/month" Brilliant.

Science at the gym is easy, it is a playground for Newtonian mechanics.
-Galileo's rolling balls down incline benches using dumbbells
-Pendulum experiments by suspending barbell weights from the squat cage
-Pulleys with the weight lifting machines

I agree the system needs to be cash into the hands of the parents and educational freedom, no strings.

Jan 22 2013:
Is it fair that a single childless person is forced to pay double in taxes to pay for education of 5 children from a low-income family? 3 of my children go to public schools and I do believe that those 5 children should have same opportunity as I did when I received my free post-graduate degree from a Soviet university. Is there a better way to social justice than forceful seizing of property from some people and giving it to others? Vouchers do not address this issue.

If government stops taking responsibility for education and the economy starts suffering from the lack of skilled labor, wouldn't private corporations and citizens pick up the tab? Voluntarily? Not with the hidden agenda to fund religion (which wouldn't be an issue when no public money is involved), but with an open agenda of making more money? Does the financial burden need to be carried by the public at all?

A side benefit of this might be a less polarized, more responsible, and more charitable society that does not blame the government for its failures. Not to mention significantly smaller taxes and government budgets.

Jan 22 2013:
Switching to 50% classroom/50% national-online education would help,
By simply allowing taxpayers without children to use the national-online education system, via something like X hours based on how much they helped pay for it.

Jan 23 2013:
I disagree. Online education as it currently is (i'm talking about the education that get's you a degree), is much more expensive than classroom education. In addition, the quality of programs has been in question for some time. If you don't agree, ask an employer if he/she would prefer an in-class college graduate or an online graduate. That is not to say that there aren't some incredible (and FREE) courses out there (such as MITs opencourseware) that I believe to be soon overtaking traditional college. The problem then becomes whether or not the school maintains the quality required of their certification. Again, I think online schools struggle to do this.

Jan 23 2013:
Hi greg,
I’m not saying online is better than classroom, nor would I say classroom is better than online.
Instead I saying 50% of both is better than 100% of one or the other.

And I’m talking about what online will/could be, currently its still in the Bata stage.
If you look at some TED talks about “online education” you can get an idea of where it is headed, and once it gets out of Bata it will no long be free. Envision a national system with literally thousands of teachers to choose from and in as many subjects as you can dream up.

Plus 50/50 would be an equalizer for students in poor preforming schools, in that a student’s online 50% would of equal value no matter what classroom school they went to.

Jan 23 2013:
Private industry can not afford to educate its employees from the ground up..It is far too risky of an investment. If one company payed for the education of its employees, its competitors could simply steal the educated employees away from them at a substantially reduced cost to those competitors.

Jan 23 2013:
Good point. Much like the U.S. is "sucking the brains" out of the rest of the world. However, if employers have to pay a one-time education tax when hiring a skilled worker proportional to the level of education, this can be addressed also. With such system, education will be paid for by those who use it and benefit from it, not by childless people or elderly property owners. Also, employers will think twice before firing a skilled worker and be more concerned with working conditions and turnover.

It might also exacerbate the problem of outsourcing of skilled labor, of course.

Theft of property by government through taxation is absolutely not fair, I agree.

The children and youth are the future of any country, so for money being taken from a childless parents and redistributed to parents who are educating the next generation of citizens --- I side with the students. With vouchers providing a free education market, at least childless taxpayers could try to get some their stolen money back by offering education services to the students receiving their tax money.

For social justice, A and B:

A.
If government is going to steal and redistribute, I would rather see the stolen property of taxpayers given to the poor, middle class, and parents than given to the political elite, bureaucrats, and politicians

The current system is top-down Stalinist redistribution of your property to government bureaucrats and political elite who make the the education decisions and allocations how they see fit. The poor and middle class are forcibly assigned schools by their zip code.

Vouchers is bottom-up grassroots redistribution of your property into the hands of all K-12 students and parents, most of whom are poor and middle where they make the education decisions and allocations with their children. And the market would be open, so they could choose the public school, private school, home school, tutors, apprenticeships, internships or anything else. The public schools would not close, they would just have to compete for students like everyone else.

I would rather have a robber stealing my money give it to middle class and poor K-12 students than to the political elite to make education decisions for the middle class and poor.

So with a voucher of $8000 you have complete education freedom for your three children, and $24,000 a year purchasing power. The low-income family of five would be receiving $40,000/yr for education. $24,000 of free education money for K-12.

Jan 23 2013:
B)
For removing government completely from the responsibility of education: financing, operating, management. Some people think vouchers are the best way to do that, (so for example, they go around telling all the religious Americans that vouchers assist in paying for fees at private religious schools --- which is true). And that's their overt goal ("hidden agenda" is nonsense).

Voucher money gets allocated at the local government level, this removes at least two layers of the government education bureaucracy. Federal education gives one choice, state education 50 choices, local education thousands of choices. Because vouchers is only financing, all levels of government (federal, state, county, district, city) are removed from operation and from management of schools.

Introducing vouchers at a start 1-2% of population, then progressing to 5-10%, then to 100%. The government financing creates ~$500 billion/yr market for education services for tutors, individuals, entrepreneurs, businesses and charities to innovative and compete in the education service industry. The public schools would set their price at the level of the voucher, and would have to compete. This allows the free market to compete on an even playing field with public schools and build up education infrastructure.

If there is a shift towards not-government education (K-12 students and parents choosing tutors, online services, home schooling, not-public schools) then the local voters can decide to go the route of a transition to free market education reducing vouchers to zero. This attracts the free market people to the town.

If they decide to raise voucher money higher, this attracts people that like education welfare to their town. If they all choose to continue going to their public school, then the only thing changing about the public school is that parents and students are paying for the service, and the money is not coming top down from politicians.

Jan 24 2013:
Petar, with the voucher system, how would you address the issues raised by Alan Russell above - that "good" schools will grow bigger until they are unable to handle the amount of students, and "poor" schools will grow poorer marginalizing those who do not have the ability to send kids to the "good" schools for various reasons? Also the problem of education for children with special needs? You can reply to the Alan's comment.

Jan 23 2013:
Why bother with the analogy? We can compare public to private education directly... Public education costs about $9K per year while the average private school costs $20K with similar results. Some of the top private schools can cost as much as $40K per year.

Jan 23 2013:
Let's consider education as a business. Schools provide service to the public, just like mail delivery companies. Is there a fundamental reason why public school system is more cost effective than private schools? Can it be the volume? I don't see why education cannot be delegated to a large corporate entity funded by private money, not taxes, who would provide a better, market-driven education.

Jan 23 2013:
"...delegated to a large corporate entity funded by private money....,"

Imagine owning a business yourself...Would you want to invest $200,000 on just one employee, 12 years away from ever seeing a return on the investment, knowing up front that the child, when they become an adult, has no legal obligation to work for you or honor his parents agreement with you, also knowing that your competitors can better afford to offer better benefits to that potential employee because they never had to spend the $200,000 in the first place? Of course you wouldn't.

Education must be funded publicly or it will never happen.

" Is there a fundamental reason why public school system is more cost effective than private schools?"

Most likely, because there is no profit motive for public education. Also, education is already pretty efficient to begin with. There isn't a whole lot of room for improvement... In it's most basic form, it consists of a teacher, a room, chalkboard, textbooks, and desks. We can always increase the student to teacher ratio, but that is about it, and there are obvious limitations and consequences for doing that.

"Can it be the volume?"

Education costs scale pretty easily. If you have 30 students, you only need one room and one teacher and 30 text books. If you have 60, you only need two rooms and two teachers and 60 textbooks.. The costs track pretty closely to the number of students.

Also, even public schools suffer from low volume. There are plenty of small towns through out the United States with low student population. They still manage to provide a better education for half the price.

Jan 23 2013:
Re: "Education must be funded publicly or it will never happen."

I doubt this, if I may. Wherever there is a public need, there is a service provider to fill it in. With a right business model, it can be done. Of course, businesses will not invest in elementary school education of an individual student. There is no way to ensure that this student will work for a particular company or, even, in a particular field after graduating the high school, or even that he/she will live in this country or live at all. But it does not mean that businesses won't invest in K-12 education in general. When there is a shortage of young people with high-school education, market will come up with a solution. Filling needs is what market does best. Controlling and manipulating people is what government does best.

You may be right that human development cannot be optimized like production of electronic chips by installing a machine of some sort. However, I don't believe that it's impossible to provide private education at lower cost and better quality than the one funded by government. Cost scales down pretty dramatically when you buy furniture, supplies, and equipment by the million. I don't think, we need to argue about it. The only cost component that, perhaps, does not decrease with volume, is salaries.

I think, the fundamental reason why private education cannot compete with government is because government won't let go of the monopoly. It's about mind control and ideology, not about preparing children for life and labor force for economy. It is not a surprise that the only other institution who is willing to compete with the government is religion.

Jan 24 2013:
" Wherever there is a public need, there is a service provider to fill it in"

Only if it is profitable. That is economics 101.

Private education costs, on average $20K per year. Only the wealthy would be able to afford it. If you are going to claim that someone will provide it, you need to demonstrate a mechanism that will guarantee it will happen. No rational understanding of free markets even remotely hints at investments with out any hope of return.

"Cost scales down pretty dramatically when you buy furniture, supplies, and equipment by the million"

You would be surprised at how little needs to be purchased to get the best price. Even a hundred desks are going to command a good bargain.

"I think, the fundamental reason why private education cannot compete with government is because government won't let go of the monopoly. "

There is no conspiracy and there is no monopoly. YOU could start a private school tomorrow, just like the other 5,000 private schools currently in the market.

Jan 23 2013:
Tuition is not the cost. It's the price consumer pays. I don't think, you compare apples to apples. What's the profit margin of those elite private schools?

Currently, private schools are considered a luxury. If private schools become a commodity, I'm sure, the cost and price may drop significantly. Quality too, but there will be choice and healthy competition.

Jan 25 2013:
Arkady is correct again.
Chile's voucher programs and open education markets provide an excellent example of how competition drives down price and drives up innovation. Price wars to attract buyers of products and services are seen across all industries and business, including private educational services like SAT tutoring.

I think the troll count for Brock is at three users now? Moderators still sleeping at the switch?

Jan 23 2013:
The United States Postal Service is a great analogy!.
USPS is an unprofitable, inferior service that costs the country billions of dollars in losses every year. DHL, FedEx, UPS, and any other competitor has to figure out how to make profits to be sustainable. And at the same time, the USPS monopoly prevents better services like FedEx from having a larger market to serve where they can further innovate and reduce costs through competition. So Americans are getting DMV and USPS educations because the state has a monopoly on education.

I used government controlled food production and food services in East Germany as an analogy, your USPS analogy is a much better one.

Companies owners would do things to capture the $8000/head student bounty: internships and apprenticeships for math, computer programming, physics, sciences, all while helping out solving real world problems related to the business. Companies that already have daycare centers would now have the market to expand education service offers to the children of employees.

The weekly daycare rates from 6:30-18:30 are $100-$200/week on the market. Microsoft and Google give employees 20% discounts on child-care arrangements already, so they could get $8000 per employee child offering Google child care.

We already KNOW that public schools are more cost effective that private schools. $9K < $20K. We don't have to guess what private industry COULD do, There are already more than 5,000 private schools in the market already, and they have been there for a while. They have already proven that they can't do it cheaper.

If public schools are 50% cheaper than private schools, then the voucher system will see parents and students choosing public schools, and the public schools expanding and putting private schools out of business.

Not only that, the money going to the teachers of the public schools will increase significantly because the funding is from bottoms up through the parents and students directly to the teachers. This makes the politicians at the federal, state, county, and city levels obsolete, and makes the unions obsolete too. More money into the hands of the teachers.

Under vouchers, all $8,554,744,647 would be going directly to the public school teachers, given to them by the students and parents. That's $6.2 billion dollars more to the teachers for resources for sciences, maths and engineering you like. So if anything, you should be an ardent supporter of vouchers.

Jan 22 2013:
It's an interesting question whether school vouchers would undermine the 1st amendment rights by funding religious education with public money.

This would be true if the government favored a particular religious doctrine. But it's hard to make this argument if people are granted complete freedom in choosing what school they want to attend. In this case, school vouchers seem to strengthen the 1st amendment rights if they have anything to do with it at all.

Education, by definition, means putting ideas in people's heads. Can we trust the government such a delicate business? If we support freedom of ideas and freedom to believe what we choose, if we oppose indoctrination, shouldn't we separate school and state just as we *claim* we separate state and religion (which is a tough claim to make after watching the inauguration oaths)? It seems to me that 1st amendment rights are much better off with government out of education business.

If we support the 1st amendment rights, why would we be outraged with people who want to exercise them by choosing religious education for their children?

Lest I am accused of having a hidden agenda, I need to disclose that I have received a free higher education in a Soviet state university and have 3 children going to public American schools. I confess my own hypocrisy on this issue. I support public education, but I support freedom of choice too. It does seem to me that schools vouchers would be a good compromise.